We left northern New Mexico on August 4, heading towards the borderlands to look for plants dependent on monsoonal rains. On the way, we drove through Petrified Forest National Park to look for Parryella filifolia, a pea family shrub, which we easily located. Trees and shrubs can usually be identified even if not flowering or […]
Chiroptera Chronicles
We left El Paso on July 9, spending 6 days in the Trans-Pecos of Texas, followed by three weeks in New Mexico. Our first day and night were in the Davis Mountains, where we were unsuccessful in our first three plant genus searches, despite the floral displays being quite good from recent rains. But at […]
Jackrabbit Habit
This blog post covers just 9 days in the field, June 1 – 9, during which we did a loop from El Paso to Southeast Arizona and back, looking for more new native vascular plant genera. In gorgeous White Sands National Park, New Mexico, which features the largest gypsum dune field in the world, we […]
An East-West Transect Across Texas
Our last week at High Island was generally disappointing. We stayed through the morning of the 7th, about 5 days longer than tentatively planned, because of favorable wind forecasts on the 6th. We were hoping to see a rare May day with good trans-Gulf migrant numbers, plus perhaps some of the later circum-Gulf migrants like […]
Spring Migration on the Upper Texas Coast
We had planned in 2021 to take a series of international birding tours during the year, with short forays in between, rather than taking a single long road trip. However, the first several tours have been cancelled because of COVID-19, and the remainder are uncertain. So the new plan is to spend most of April […]
To El Paso, At Last
We departed the Everglades on Jan. 3, heading for Little Manatee River State Park, which had one site free up for the week, probably from a cancellation. This park is about halfway up the peninsula, near Tampa Bay. While there we paddled on the Manatee and Little Manatee Rivers, and also canoed out to Shell […]
Return to the Subtropics
We left the Lower Rio Grande Valley on Dec. 1 and headed for Florida, where we plan to wait a couple months for our new truck to be manufactured and for the worst of the COVID crisis in El Paso to pass. Camping in most of Florida in winter virtually requires reservations far in advance. […]
Exile in the Lower Rio Grande Valley
When visiting the Lower Rio Grande Valley (LRGV), we often get a room in an extended stay facility rather than camp, for a break, and also because the cost is about the same, and air conditioning is nice given the high humidity and temperatures in the region. We stayed in Woodspring Suites in Pharr, which […]
A Great Arc
After leaving Minnesota, we spent the month of October making a grand arc east and south, passing through the states of Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, West Virginia, Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, Alabama, Louisiana, and Texas. The basic plan was to catch up with our nephew in Madison, WI; to sample a few interesting botanical areas […]
Paddling in NE Minnesota
After leaving Wyoming, we drove about a thousand miles in three days, staying at a campground one night to do laundry, and stopping to do some badly-needed shopping. We arrived in Minnesota on September 1 and ended up leaving on the 30th, finally driven out by predictions of a full week of cold, rainy, windy […]
Nomadic Naturalists 